Joan C. Williams, Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of California Hastings College of Law and founding director for the Center of WorkLife Law, will present “How to have both a job and a life: Excelling in academia without losing your soul,” on Friday, Jan. 20, at 10 a.m. in the Memorial Union Century Theater. The presentation is open to students, faculty and staff.

Williams has played a central role in reshaping debates regarding gender, class and work-family issues for 25 years. The culmination of this work is her book, “Reshaping the Work-Family Debate: Why Men and Class Matter.” Williams' prize-winning book “Unbending Gender: Why Family and Work Conflict and What To Do About It,” and reports such as “The Three Faces of Work-Family Conflict, Opt Out or Pushed Out: How the Press Covers Work-Family Conflict” and “One Sick Child Away from Being Fired: When Opting Out is not an Option” have influenced policymakers, the press and activists. She has written or co-written six books and more than 70 law review articles, including one listed in 1996 as one of the most cited law review articles ever written. 



The Center of WorkLife Law, which Williams founded, works with employers, employees, employment lawyers, unions and public policymakers to eliminate discrimination against caregivers, to develop best-practice workplace flexibility policies and to facilitate adoption of public policies to reconcile work and family. She also is co-founder of the Project for Attorney Retention, which has played a leadership role for the past decade in helping the legal profession advance and retain women, and offer work-life balance to men and women. 



Williams’ current research focuses on how work-family conflict differs at different class locations, "culture wars" as class conflict, how gender bias differs by race and the role of gender pressures on men in creating work-family conflict and gender inequality.

The presentation is sponsored by NDSU FORWARD.